A few of you are likely reading that and nodding your head. Seems like a good choice. Except it doesn’t mean only what most people think it does. For me, integrity is about far more than simply the personal integrity of my bosses. In fact, that isn’t even the biggest part.

First and foremost, I need to know there’s integrity of mandate. I need to know there is a clear link between the actions of the Department and the outcomes they are trying to achieve. A plausible connection that they can actually achieve something. Going back to an earlier post, it’s one of my challenges when looking at a Department like Indigenous Affairs or Status of Women. Both departments have great mandates, but there is no particular vision behind either one that makes me believe they can achieve their mandate. I’m not even sure they are going in the right direction. But equally important to me, I don’t know if anyone who works at those places know it. Without the mandate, vision and levers, it’s tilting at windmills. And while I have a lot of respect for windmill tilting, I don’t want to do it for my career.

Second, I need to know there is integrity of policy. A clear line from the evidence to the instruments chosen. I am not a statistician, nor do I believe a lot of the so-called “evidence” tells us what to do — I think it tells us a lot about the problem, and some hints about which of several instruments may help, but there is still a lot of room for Ministerial discretion. I’m not naïve, that is a part of our government system. We’re not automatons, nor are our leaders. They even have the right to be wrong. But ultimately, I need to know that the mandate is being approached with a policy lens that actually has some rigour to it. A colleague I respect went to work at DFAIT (now Global Affairs Canada), and was surprised just how little real “policy” work they did. It didn’t surprise me, I had seen it in action. People there would take four or five initiatives, throw it together into a storyline, and call it “policy”. But at most it is policy coordination, it isn’t program policy or policy development. True policy work requires some analysis, and ultimately, some hard choices — do we go left or right, and why? It is one of the most frustrating parts of working in policy coordination or working on things like Cabinet notes. The people who do it are touching multiple files per day, with no real time to focus on the content. They are often called “policy people”, but it is the most administrative form of policy. It’s storytelling, sure, and often strategic policy or macro policy ends up being about storytelling. But it to is not what I want to be doing with my life. I’m a good storyteller, but I actually want some meat to the story.

Third, I insist on integrity of process whenever I can. It is one of the reasons why I work on corporate files. Because there are a lot of people out there who want to play fast and loose with processes, just as the DG at CIDA did when doing his Treasury Board submission. The end doesn’t justify the means, but neither do means justify themselves. I’m not embracing all audit controls, or a red tape nightmare to dot Is or cross Ts. I don’t want anymore process than is needed. But once those processes are in place, I think they should be followed or at least when they are not, it should be transparent. When I was at DFAIT, and they were playing with the contracting rules in order to keep me on the team, they were at least doing it above-board, completely transparently with documentation across the board. A bending of the process rather than complete violation. At CIC, I wasn’t a slave to the rules that procurement processes had to be followed perfectly, but at least we could document when things were changed so we had the paperwork to justify changes.

Fourth, I try to maintain a culture of integrity, including myself, my team and even with my bosses. Sometimes that is a real challenge against values and ethics. Like transparency when I’m not allowed to share certain information. Or being part of situations that are uncomfortable and not being sure what to do.

One time at DFAIT, it was after hours, my Director and a sleazy officer were having a late-night drink in the Director’s office. I was about to head out, and needed to touch base with the Director after a long day of missing each other with other priorities. We were talking about some upcoming logistics for the summer, and we were wondering about who we could get, because I wasn’t going to be able to cover all of it. We discussed quick pros and cons of various candidates, including a co-op student from the previous year. Young, female, attractive. And out of nowhere, the sleazeball made a very crude comment about her appearance. Trump-like, almost. Both my Director and I paused, looked at him like he had two heads, looked at each other, and said, “anyway, moving on…”. I know the director said something to him after I left, as the officer was apologizing later, but really? It told me all I needed to ever know about the guy. And I’d never work with him again under any circumstances.

For the DG at CIDA who played fast and loose with TB rules, he offered me a job before I knew the full story. But I knew enough to know I didn’t want to work with him. I just didn’t like the way he did business. He created a giant global initiative with another guy, worked on it with two international contacts for a few months, and “accidentally” forgot to tell anyone in the Canadian government he was doing it. Until Italy found out and reamed out our G8 rep for not telling them when they were the G8 chair and this was a major possible deliverable. And the G8 rep didn’t have a clue what they were talking about…what global initiative? Someone at CIDA? Even the CIDA minister hadn’t known about it. Later in my time at CIDA, I was in a position to review some of his materials coming through, and even flagged them for a friend to keep an eye out, not in a nasty way, just to be extra vigilant. I didn’t care WHAT he was doing, that was beyond my purview, I just cared about HOW he was doing it.

Another project came to me at CIDA and I ended up with two significant integrity questions. First and foremost, we had always managed this file fairly transparently across government. It was an annual thing, relatively low-key internally, but would get some press. One year when I was managing the file, it was NOT going to be a good news story and PCO slapped a lid on all communications. I wasn’t allowed to share drafts with ANYONE. Not even with the people at HRDC who would have to write a bunch of briefs and comms materials on very short notice when the event happened. I wasn’t supposed to tell them. Which I felt was not only stupid, it violated every professional fibre of my being for how we work in partnership. If I didn’t tell them, the relationship built over the previous ten years between the two groups would be destroyed. In the end, I shared some info and gave them heads-up so they could plan better for the event. It kept things stable, even if it wasn’t strictly within the letters of my formal orders.

On the same file, I received a call from an old contact at DFAIT. The senior executive who was now director-level approximately, the same one who told me I was a glorified file clerk and to whom I had said I wouldn’t be stupid enough to work for him again. That had been in August of the year I moved to CIDA, and I had only seen him twice since that point — once at the Summit in Vancouver, but with little interaction, and once at a Christmas party. One of those awkward conversations where you both turn around and you’re suddenly face to face, and you have a conversation. He sort of smirked at me, and asked how everything was going at CIDA, was I getting “more responsible” files now? I told him it was going great, and fortunately, the management at CIDA was so much better. My friend standing near by couldn’t believe how we threw such daggers at each other before moving off. No love lost. Yet here he was calling me and asking for advice for his Ambassador and the upcoming event. He had two options — let’s call it going left or going right. Without the information I had, which I wasn’t allowed to share, he was struggling to make a decision. For me, I knew the right answer though. If he went left, it would blow up in his face, the Ambassador would be pissed, and karma would be delivered a helping hand. If he went right, the Ambassador might be a bit disappointed, but no other real downside. The question was simple — should I tell him to go right and avoid the problem or say nothing at all and let him get reamed? I so wanted to say “go left”. I did. I really did. But I told him that perhaps this year was a good time for us to “go right”, even if I wasn’t allowed to share the info with him that he was searching.

I’m confronted with these issues often, and it is part of management. I mentioned earlier that ethical questions are not the elaborate scenarios that they share with you in training classes, it’s the day-to-day stuff. And for me, I need to be able to control enough of my work and outputs to ensure that my personal integrity is intact. When the DG from a previous example was cursing and swearing at me, that was too much. I couldn’t be part of it any longer. When I saw bad HR processes, I decided not to openly challenge them, but I had to at least register my disagreement with the approach.

I need to see it in myself, of course, but also reflected in the actions of my bosses. I need to know that they aren’t doing fast and loose things just to get something done. Or if they are, that they are at least transparent about it. And I try to make sure the same “culture” exists in my team.

In my personal life, it’s a huge precept for me. Not only have I chosen to do the right thing, I actually have in some cases only done it if it was for the right reasons. Something that might have been good for me, but for the wrong reasons, I chose not to do. In some cases, things that most people wouldn’t even think about avoiding.

For work, my approach to HR is a bit like that. I am perfectly fine telling people they should apply for lots of jobs, try to make pools, etc. But for myself, I will only compete for a job that I actually want. The federal system actively encourages you to compete just to make a pool and then get pulled for another job, but I won’t do it for myself. The right thing for the wrong reasons, so I won’t do it. I’m fine if others do it. Just not right for me.

Last but not least, I need to know there is integrity of delivery. It’s all well in good to have the right stuff up front, but if it is going to hell in a handbasket on the delivery side, what’s the point?

And it is why it is my highest point. And really, if I wanted, I could group almost every other element under this heading.

#01. Integrity – Integrity of mandate, integrity of policy, integrity of process, integrity of delivery and a culture of integrity

Most people who have read my top ten list so far have probably wondered, “What the ??? Where is the substance?”. Well, that comes now. More by type of substance than individual file area.

As a digression, I am not super worried about the file content — I could work in just about any department, and feel like I was contributing and enjoying my work. There are a couple where I would probably hesitate. Indigenous Affairs is one I would avoid…I honestly don’t think anyone has any clue how to move the files forward, and we pour billions per year into a system that produces almost nothing. Thankfully we have a reconciliation committee to make us feel good about our current partnership, even when that partnership threatens to consign another generation to poverty-stricken, subsistence living. Put more neutrally, working there would be well beyond pushing string.

I have similar views about the Canadian Human Rights Committee that lost its way a long time ago, the Status of Women which needs to be either strengthened and given teeth or abolished, and probably half of the Fisheries Department. Which half I have no idea, but some of it is said to be working by those in the know. Which isn’t to say there aren’t good people working in those departments, or that some of the programs aren’t useful — more that they face large-scale structural issues that I think limit their potential to ever achieve their mandates.

Beyond them, I’d probably work anywhere. I don’t have a big desire to do TBS or PCO — partly by workloads, partly by formality, etc. Which is odd — because if I want to do “special projects”, TBS is definitely the place to do it. Almost half their department is working on new initiatives at any one time, it seems.

As such, I’m pretty open-minded to having a conversation with anyone about any area. Which sounds odd until you read the next part.

Starting at the top of the “policy chain”, there is research. Most research, at least policy research outside of some parts of the Canadian Space Agency, NRCan, Environment Canada or Health Canada / Public Health, is pretty high-level. Trends, issues, statistical models. Most of it not very useful to anyone until someone takes it and finds a way to turn it into policy-relevant language. There was a job recently in the Chief Public Health Officer’s office working on an annual report — which would take some of that general research and give it a good policy spin, which is a great way to use it. But most policy research elsewhere is often done by researchers who have no idea how to write a policy issue or formulate a recommendation. They just do the research and share it. Which doesn’t interest me at all.

Moving a step down the chain, we come to strategic policy. This is the part where policy analysts take a lot of that dry research, marry it to various policy initiatives of the government, and come up with broad diagnostiques, mainly at the macro level, of what is going on in various domains or sectors. I mentioned earlier that I didn’t want to be the sector specialist, and this is the type of area where they tend to hang out. However, within the Strategic Policy area, there are also some other functions. Corporate planning for one, which I would do. But I don’t want to do departmental coordination at a large department like ESDC — we have 25K employees, 50+ programs, etc. Most of what they can do at any one time is coordination of the input — there’s little opportunity to change the direction, to tell a different story than the individual branches want to do, there’s literally no capacity or time to do it. Other areas tend to be policy coordination shops, and again, in huge departments, they are brutal. That’s where I wasted 18 months trying to do an IPF nobody wanted, and I won’t go back there. It is also where there is a LOT of work going on to do spin around mandate trackers, ministerial commitments, etc. Lots of spin, very little time for actual substance. And again, a LOT of coordination. None of it excites me, even though I have someone in my advisory camp who thinks I should do it because a lot of people aren’t good at it, she thinks I am (and she has very high standards), and I can write fast as well.

A small digression about a skill I have, one that freaks out my current team quite often. We do notes for the ADMs attending Executive Committees, and like most departments, the documents frequently arrive the day before, if we’re lucky. Sometimes late the day before. So, from time to time, we have received all the docs at 4:00 and the meeting is the next morning at 9:00. Perhaps 5 or 6 presentations or reports, all for discussion and approval, and we have perhaps an hour to craft a note. For me, that’s no problem. I am a very fast reader, I have a huge spectrum of knowledge on a lot of different areas in the Branch and Department, and I can pull out the important parts from the decks very quickly. So, from time to time, when the docs are late, I pitch in and send the lead officer my notes/summaries of a few key decks. Sometimes I can read and write the input for the note faster than the lead person can format and put them in the final note, so I’m opening, reading, writing and sending, and they’re copying, pasting and formatting…5 decks in 30 minutes, note ready to go.

Back when I was in strategic policy, we often got asked to “pitch in” on Cabinet notes…basically they were Cabinet memos, perhaps 20 or 30 pages, that were going to Cabinet the next day or so, and we had to have a short note to the Minister to say “Here’s what the memo is about, here’s what we care about, etc.” Many of them are not particularly relevant to our department, but the Minister still sits on the committees and needs a summary note. For me, a thick memo probably took me about an hour to have a proper note done. Which I would then send to the Manager in charge, she would review, make no changes, pass to the Director, who would also rarely make changes, and the note would make its way onward to the Minister’s office. No muss, no fuss. Give it to Paul, he’ll give us back something camera-ready or pretty close to it.

It’s a good skill to have, and I can do lots of things like that on the policy side. Quick policy coordination to draft up a reasonable memo, get it ready to go, consult, etc. I write fast, and I have decent content on the first go. Which is why my advisor thinks I should do it, because I’m “really good at it.” There’s only one problem.

I hate it.

Okay, hate is probably a bit strong, but I’m bored doing it. I just don’t enjoy it. And while there is a huge pool of people who WANT to do that type of work, and accepting her argument that there are very few who are actually good at it, there are still people available. On the corporate systems front, the pool willing to do that type of work is pretty small. And ones who are actually really good at it are probably about the same ratio as what she thinks for policy. So, while most don’t think the stakes are as high, I think they’re even higher on the corporate side. Because badly done corporate stuff gets in the way of even the best policy work.

So while I’m really good at the notes, and the policy coordination function, I don’t want it as my day job. I’ll do it as part of my job, but not the whole job. I met with someone last week, great looking job. Three main files, as the Director described it, with one file that had strong links to some work I did at DFAIT and CIDA. Good work, I enjoy it, but often highly responsive and cyclical. The second is an emerging area, could be quite interesting. Yet no meat on the bones yet, and won’t be for another six months at least. Which leaves the third file, which includes notes for the Minister for THREE separate Cabinet committees. I know what that looks like. Combined with mandate trackers, broad-based government Charters, etc.? It’s a nightmare job with almost full-time responsive coordination. I might be wrong, but I’ll ask the Director for clarification if I’m offered the job. There’s an easy out for it though, so I might just gently pass.

Once you move past “strategic policy”, you move into program policy. To me, this is where it gets interesting. At this point, the sectoral specialists are tied much tighter to actual program design and instrument choice. THAT I don’t might digging into more. It’s one of the reasons even on the corporate side that I was willing to do it — I get to see the interplay between policy and programs, the perfect level for me. Within my own branch, there are approximately 19 programs, depending on how you count them. Of the 19, 1 would be interested in 1 out of 3 benefit programs, 0 out of 4 P/T transfers, 1 out of 3 operating programs, and probably only 2 out of 9 G&Cs programs. Call it 4 in total. The 2 Gs&Cs are out because my wife works on one, and the other has too much annual churn. The 1 operating program could be interesting, but if I’m avoiding churn, that is NOT the place to go. At least, not on the policy side. Which leaves 1 benefit program. I had ruled it out for some time, but I’m pursuing some new conversations. Might not lead anywhere, but worth a conversation.

In the rest of the Branch, there are multiple horizontal files. One area, already mentioned, I would have taken in a heartbeat — HR, IT, accommodations…doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But I wanted to try and fully integrate it with the planning and finance function. Now THAT would have been awesome. But it was not to be. Another is the program policy function across the Branch, where my advisor works. And I think I would rather poke my eye out with hot firesticks than do that type of job for any length of time. She finds ways to cram substance into the short periods of time she gets to touch a file, but that’s not me. And a lot of those shops frequently get saddled with the horizontal policy coordination function that I mentioned earlier. Lots of requests, lots of spin, very little time. Very intense, and she loves it. I, however, do not. It’s just not a buzz for me.

Which leaves FPT relations, which in a different world, I would say no to (such as in Strategic Policy). But in a program branch? It has some interesting elements, not unlike the institutional relations work I did at CIDA that I quite enjoyed. Unfortunately, like the departments I don’t like that I listed above, I’m not sure I would be equally interested in all provinces. Some, quite frankly, I would have little interest in. Like my interest at CIDA in specific types of countries, i.e. small island developing states who were vulnerable, I think some provinces can manage their own affairs so the conversation isn’t very productive, vs. a few others who really need help and want to collaborate.

Once you move past program policy, and into service delivery, there are two sub-areas in my view … operations policy and actual service delivery i.e. transactions. I have already said in previous posts that I have virtually NO interest in transactional work. I just don’t. It’s good work, lots of people like it, but I kind of view it like policy — there are people who want to do that who are better than me, but not as many who want to do the type of work I like to do who would be better than me.

Which leaves the operations policy — moving from policy and program design, and instrument choice, into the actual operations work that guides the delivery people. I don’t want to do the actual delivery, but working on training, manuals, etc.? That’s doable. A value-added service. I don’t know if I would want to do it forever, but the right environment could be good. Which I had thought I had found a while ago with someone I work really well with, but the offer proved a lot softer than I was expecting. I actually don’t even know where it stands at this point.

Beyond the delivery arm, there are of course audits and evaluations (the feedback mechanism), but I have little interest in doing those as a non-auditor and non-evaluator. Good work, but it is almost all coordination. All substance is provided by others. Which leaves enabling services.

For HR, there is a fear that familiarity may breed contempt, and doing something that I feel passionately about might just be enough to kill me when I see what they have to settle for in terms of operations. I took a stab at one area, but as I mentioned earlier, they were covered. Another area was offered to me three years ago, but the timing was terrible, and I said no. While I don’t regret the answer, as it was the right one for the time, I regret I don’t have the same offer now.

I reached out to some of my contacts in the Finance Branch, but while I do work with a lot of them on big projects, and we work well together, the sad reality is that most of their really good work is done by FI officers i.e. those with accounting and finance degrees. That’s how they’re staffed. Not unlike HR being staffed with PEs. I tried hitting up their branch services unit, i.e. the people who coordinate them for input into reports and things. Kind of the same job I’m doing now, but didn’t get any take up.

I have a meeting coming up with someone on the IT side. Like HR, I have views, but I might be able to sublimate some of them. There’s one big project in particular that is coming, and I’d love to work on it, but I have no idea yet how it is resourced, if at all. If done right, it could have a huge impact on the department; if done wrong, it could bog us down back to the dark ages. I speak enough tech to work with them, but more importantly, I speak policy, program, delivery, and corporate too. Like the HR one though, I have a feeling they’re already staffed up. But I’ll have the conversation anyway, maybe that or something else will shake loose. I at least know the DG likes me somewhat.

There is another area in the department, and I was a bit excited about the possibility, and I reached out to the person I knew there. No response. She’s hinted at me coming to work there before, but to be honest, she isn’t the only one who has pursued me in the past only to now be playing hard to get or seeming uninterested.

Exceedingly frustrating.

I’m branching out to other Departments, and I’m open to conversations even if they don’t lead to anything. Partly as I’m feeling a bit vulnerable and insecure about my abilities at the moment. I’ll talk more about this in a subsequent post, but there has been little take up on my interest and availability so far.

What does this all mean? It means that I have a hierarchy of types of work that I would do, and I would like to be as progressively higher on that chain as possible.

#02. Progressive alignment — Tier one over tiers two through five, noting that I’m in Tier Three currently (*).

TIER ONE

TIER TWO

TIER THREE

TIER FOUR

TIER FIVE

Branch management (enabling services)

Program policy (benefits)

IT policy and projects

Departmental HR

Departmental Finance

Integrity Services (policy)

Branch management * (corporate planning, finance)

Program policy (FPT)

Corporate secretariat

Strategic policy (corporate planning)

Program policy (horizonta)

Strategic policy (sector)

Service delivery (operations policy)

Strategic policy (horizontal)

Audits and evaluation (coordination)

Strategic policy (FPT)

Service delivery (transactions)

Is that specific enough? 🙂 It’s also why it is ranked so high. Some of those choices put me high on the other 9 as well. And I almost wanted to rank it first. But there’s still something higher.

Up until now, the top ten list has likely seemed rather generic. Fuzzy features around jobs, not elements you could “target” or “search” for in a formal job board for example. The next two though are pretty clear.

I want to be a manager.

You might be thinking, “Wait, isn’t he already a manager?” Yes, I am, and I want to remain one. I like managing people. I am comfortable in expanding my “reach” through delegation. Obviously, sure, I can get more done if I have minions. 🙂 But I also really like two other aspects.

First and foremost, the management layer helps me to ensure that I stay “strategic” (item #07 on my list). Managing lets me exercise the judgement function that I like, combined with ensuring a broad direction and vision for my team. I always want my team to know where we’re going, why we’re going there, and some of the placemarkers on the road to get there. They can plan the route in some cases, and the mode of transport, so to speak, but we all know the destination and general approach to the journey.

Second, I like seeing employees develop. I like helping them too, and I’m supportive, but I really like giving them opportunities and seeing them flourish. I also like spotting talent, recruiting it, and letting it gallop off in a good direction for the team. Harnessing them in a way, without trying to constrain them too much. It is part of the reason that I am so supportive of co-op positions, even though I haven’t had any lately (just too light on suitable workplan options). I’ve invested time and energy in post-secondary recruitment, I helped organize an event on recruitment and retention. I even like doing PAs to see what they have done in the past year and where they want to go in the next. I can’t talk about specific examples, that info is under HR privilege, but I love hearing what they’re doing now and where they’re going.

I have mentioned one example previously, so I’ll expand a bit on it. One of my co-op students raved about me to her future mother-in-law, and as much as that raving benefited me, it was also gratifying to see. That during her time with me, a single semester, she learned a lot, saw a future in the public service, developed some skills, and wanted to come back. Which she attributed to working with me. In short, a “good” experience. And lots of people have said they want to work for me, particularly if I become an EX.

Which I’m agnostic about. While I like management, I also like getting my hands dirty sometimes in the files. Right now, I report to a DG, and some see that as the worst scenario — all the responsibilities of being a director without any of the perks. However, for me, it is all the benefits of flying solo without any of the costs of being a director. I am not doing an EX job, I know that, even if some other people think I am. And it’s inspiring to see that some people at multiple levels think I should be an EX or that I’m EX-ready now.

Yet there is another thread in government. Many experienced executives say the best two jobs in government are either EX-2/3 (i.e. a Director General) or EX minus 1 (pre-executive, i.e. my current level). One huge disadvantage of being an EX-01 is that you are accountable for a lot — the workhorses of the EX cadre. And with lots of non-EX reports to manage. If you are an EC-07, like me, you usually have a Director above you — someone who is accountable for all the work of the division. Sure, you have responsibilities too, but ultimately, it’s on them, not you.

So many EXs say that unless you are planning to go to EX 2 or 3 level, there is no point in becoming an EX as the pay increase above an EC-07 isn’t significant enough to warrant the extra headaches. There certainly are a lot of EX-01s around that put in a lot more hours than I am as an EC-07 and who run into work/life balance challenges pretty fast. There is also a popular refrain that “You can’t choose your first EX-01” and that is a huge problem for me.

Because I’m not about the level. I don’t care if I ever get promoted again. I am all about the work. I want to manage people, but I don’t need to be an EX to do that. I feel like I’m adopting the William Lyon Mackenzie King approach to career management — “Not necessarily promotion but promotion if necessary”.

I am not blocking myself from an EX job, but it has to be about the job. I won’t take an EX job just to take an EX, I have to want the job. I’m also opposed to people applying for jobs just to make a pool, even though they don’t want the job itself. I think that just mucks up the HR system and bogs it down. I encourage others to do it, of course, but I am against it in principle and thus rarely apply because I don’t see jobs I actually want.

Which I confess recently burned me. There is a job I really wanted, and I missed it for two reasons. First, my french was expired, despite a year of pushing to get the refresh training I needed. Second, it was an EX job and I wasn’t in any EX pols. They went with someone else who wants their EX and who was fully bilingual. An easier fit, too, for them than for me. I would have made the same decision if I was the DG. Still means that the specific job I wanted in that case was an EX. If I want something like that in the future, I’ll have to make a pool.

Yet when I say management, I don’t mean I have to be a director. I just have to have some staff to help develop.

#03. Management — Not about level of position, but scope and seeing employees develop

Let’s see…right fit (10), environment (09), the people (08), strategic (07), value-added (06) and special projects (05). The next area is one of the ones I mentioned before that perhaps could be simply merged with others, but it produced such a bad experience previously when it was lacking, I am keeping it separate.

I want to do something that someone wants done.

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? If I get something assigned to it, that must mean someone wants it done, right?

Not really. I spent 18 months of my life working on two files — an Integrated Policy Framework and a policy-based Centre of Excellence model for the department — and it was like pushing string. Outside of my own shop, nobody really wanted it. And without some sort of carrot or stick, I have no interest in taking on tasks that I have to “sell” to someone. I’m more of a “if you build it” believer, rather than an “always be closing” salesman.

It’s related to right fit too, of course, and the environment. Under people, it would also require buy-in and support from my bosses. And it is one of the reasons I like special projects — usually each of them has come with that “demand” model built into the request…we either had to do it because it was imposed or the Department had decided to do something. Either way, it wasn’t me trying to sell someone on it, the demand was already there.

As part of my job search, I mentioned to a former DG now ADM that I wanted to do something that was value-added…kind of “fixing” something that needed fixing, possibly on the enabling side. His response was a question — did I know any enabling area anywhere in the department that didn’t need fixing, that was already working well? It was cynical, but also accurate…the question didn’t narrow the field. I said instead that I also wanted to work on something that had support/demand/buy-in/commitment from the relevant players that not only did they recognize it needed fixing, but they actually wanted to fix it. He agreed that was a much smaller list.

When I was doing the IPF, lots of people thought it was a “nice to have”, maybe even something that would benefit the department. But no one really “wanted” it. There were no demand clients. Similarly for the CoE, at least not at the time, and not the way our ADM was pushing.

So I pushed string for 18 months and I never want to do that again. There was just no take-up. While I own some of that failure, some of it was pure structural and some of it was organizational. There are other parts in there too, but for the part that was organizational, there was no demand.

In our department, there is one area that I think is clearly broken — our IT security policy. I have some insights, would love to work on it. But there’s no appetite from the Deputy down to the DG in charge to fix it — they don’t even think it is broken, even though most people in the Department do. The linkages to privacy are huge, as well as I/M practices, evidence-based policy work in the Department, etc. A huge constraint facing our Department, but nobody wants to treat it as broken. No recognition by the powers that be, no demand by anyone in power. Pushing string would be a generous description.

One of our branches is undergoing massive transformation — with no clear vision or workplan. Massive demand, but chaos. Again, going in there could be another pushing string moment as they figure out what they actually want to do. Some would argue “Get in on the ground floor, influence the direction”, but the boxes are too wide open right now to know where the demand will take us. If it goes in one direction, could be a great area; if it goes in the other, it would be a nightmare scenario for me on the “right fit” front.

I had one area that I was willing to consider pushing string on, and not surprisingly, it was related to HR. But I met with the Director in charge and they have everything handled apparently. Not necessarily the way I think it could or even should be done, but a viable conservative model. I could make it awesome, and there’s some demand, but not throughout the hierarchy. Sigh.

Yet, in the end, I’m not picking a job right now, I’m talking about what I’m looking for in a job. For the right position, I might be willing to give this aspect up, but for now, it’s a key ingredient. And based on how badly it affected my job, career and confidence previously, it is pretty high on my list.

I’m moving into the top five, after having covered right fit (10), environment (09), the people (08), strategic (07), and value-added (06). This next one weighs in at #05 and again, is a little bit hard to define. I don’t want to go too narrow nor too broad. I’m also not sure it is right-sized. I want to talk about specific skill sets.

I’ve already covered things like strategic thinking and judgement, as well as some of the value-added areas. In addition to that, I noticed a trend in my early government jobs that trended into later jobs in different forms.

First and foremost, I started off leveraging my computer skills. Things that other people didn’t have much of at the time, and so I got hired for multiple jobs partly as I had skills that other people didn’t have to the same degree. The Ministry of Education wanted me to do their database of legal case summaries. DFAIT wanted me to manage a database of mailouts for promoting their program, plus they liked me doing the slides for presentations, before they even knew how important that it would become. Obviously a bunch of the computer jobs wanted those same skills. I’ll pin this thought for a moment.

Second, when I did the conference work at DFAIT, a couple of Ministerial meetings at CIDA, even some of the computer work for the university, I was pretty good at logistics. I organized a G8 Ministerial in 7 weeks and the Minister was extremely happy with everything, so we’ll count that as a performance indicator. Sometimes I worked with others, sometimes I did it myself. Same result each time — everybody was happy, and the events mostly ran without hitches. Let’s pin that thought too.

Third, when I was manager for performance measurement, I also did Strategic Review. Again, a huge file going through, and it was my job to run it all for our branch. Not unlike corporate planning that is done annually.

Do I want to do program reviews, logistics or computers? No. That’s not the point, not really. I’m both good at and enjoy large special projects. I’m good at organizing the various sub-elements, figuring out how to run the various steps, and keep it on track to the end. Gantt charts when I need them, workplans, task lists, sharing info with those who need to know or who I want to co-opt into the process.

It also keeps my work life interesting, with lots of “extra” features on top of my regular duties.

Some people might read that “project manager” and think, “Oh, you want to be a PM”. It sounds logical, except PMs don’t really manage projects. They manage contribution agreements and contracts with people who actually manage projects. That’s too far removed for me. And since government rarely delivers new initiatives directly, it is probably more areas like internal services and processes where these special projects are likely to show up for me.

Which leaves me with:

#05. Special Projects — utilizing a variety of skills for computers, logistics, admin, processes, or coordination.

As I said, I don’t know that this wording is precise enough. Just as I said I don’t want my whole job to be “general duties as required”, I like the concreteness of individual projects. Preferably one or two large ones, not a large number of small ones. Something that needs doing, I guess, although that gets me into a later element too. Stay tuned.

I have already written about right fit (10), environment (09), the people (08), and strategic (07). A couple of those could perhaps collapse in on each other (right fit and strategic). And this one could perhaps join them.

In multiple positions, I have succeeded in part purely because of my attitude. I take my job seriously, even when it isn’t that important a job or could be done by several other people, not just me. Which had an interesting effect on me.

I realized that I like being in positions where that “can do” attitude, so to speak, also means that the boss comes to rely on me. While for some that might just mean avoiding micro-managing, for me it goes way beyond that. I want to not only be useful, I want to be “extra” useful because of the way I approach my files.

I like to be depended on, for my bosses to know “he has this”, and to rely on me that way. Thus freeing them up for other tasks. With a previous boss, this resulted in an almost shared accountability for management. While she was a director, and I reported to her, she was very open to having conversations about management, what we were doing, where we were going, etc. And eventually, not right away, she started treating it like a shared problem. Partly because of my abilities, partly because of my style, but also partly because of my attitude. We could talk about “these are the range of management problems facing us” and then divvy them up between us.

She trusted me. And again, not just in a “lighter touch” style which I also want, but that I was part of the decision-making process. Flying solo for the last three years i.e. reporting directly to a DG has had elements of that too. And there are structural elements that require it. But outside of that, there are also management styles and file sharing that allow it, permit it, even encourage it to grow.

And when that happens, I feel like I’m adding value. Because at that point, I’m not just doing the job anyone can do, I’m doing it in a way that only some people actually do…

It doesn’t have to be about management of files, that is just one of the examples. Back when I was young and freshly minted as a worker at the university library, my approach added value. My approach to being a co-op student and contractor at DFAIT added value. It’s why I was hired back so many times. When I was an ES-04, and was getting multiple acting assignments, and even got to act as Director, it was because I was a “really cheap” ES-04 — because my actual level was closer to ES-05 and -06 at the time. What I didn’t have in years of experience per se, I did have in a more mature approach to my work.

What is interesting too though is that early on, some of my approach was simply that I would get things done that I committed to doing. Even if it meant extra hours, or in the one case I wrote about, pulling an all-nighter. Another time when I was running a conference in Vancouver, our local contractor totally screwed up our badges. APEC didn’t use “country names” and so China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan could all take part in government to government discussion — representing their “economy”. So the nomenclature was “People’s Republic of China”, Hong Kong, and “Chinese Taipei”. Which meant APEC became the only intergovernmental forum where all three Chinas would participate together. Yet when the contractor produced the badges, they put in whatever people had sent, and didn’t alter to match the economy name — so it listed government affiliations, titles in some cases (like Foreign Affairs), and names like Taiwan. I couldn’t use them. And the database was completely messed up. I ended up getting everything else going which took until about 10:30 at night, and then I started fixing badges and some program docs. Yes, you guessed it, it took all night. But everything was ready to go the next morning. Because on site, I was ultimately responsible. Did anyone know but me? Nope.

Over the years, I’ve realized that making sure it gets done is not the same as doing it myself. I have a team now, and sometimes that is just setting clear priorities. And then pitching in directly when files might overwhelm our timelines. I don’t want people in the team to be crunched, although from time to time it happens. Partly as some of them, one or two in particular over the years, have had a similar work ethic. They take responsibility and deliver, no matter what. And it’s my job to support them so they don’t kill themselves, but sometimes my job is to let them keep a piece so they own it. I try to also make it that if crap happens, it happens to the team, not just one person.

I’m not entirely how to name this job attribute though. Is it the responsibility I want? Not necessarily. Is it the file ownership? Already covered. Is it the strategic nature of my contribution? Again, already covered. Ultimately, it is more about the characterization of my work, to be needed, to be useful, to know that even if I’m not doing the ultimate final product, and instead I am only working behind the scenes, that I am contributing and to see the connection to the end.

06. Value-added — efficient, responsible attitude, being useful.

It’s not quite the right nuance in wording, but it is all I have at the moment. I suppose another way of looking at it almost like not only am is the job the right fit for me, I like knowing that my approach produces results that lots of other people’s approaches do not create. I’ll come back to this in a later post too.

10. Right Fit — government, intellect over manual, system over transactions, specific files not general, manage level of personal investment

09. Environment — informal, networked, coalitions of the willing, mainly in English

08. The People — Balance, day to day, bosses and a good team

For the 7th on my list, I’m not even sure it is different from the tenth, or just variations on a theme. I said I wanted specific not general duties, i.e. I don’t want to be wholly responsive to whatever wind blows my way, but rather responsible for several files in particular that need to be managed or advanced.

Yet I find that is not precise enough. There’s another element, which is managing the level between down in the transactions or up at the system level, I also want to be the generalist. I don’t want to be the technical expert in a specific area. I don’t mind working with those people, or consulting them when I need to do so. But I don’t want to be that expert on one thing.

I like the interplay between multiple issues. Ones that individually may seem straightforward, but once put together, requires a strategic overview and good judgement to figure out how to make them work together. Which seems at first glace like perhaps just a variation of dealing with systems, but it isn’t quite that. Certainly when I was at CIDA and dealing with trade files, I was able to deal with the strategic side of the file without getting into systems.

Which is why, with a slight risk of redundancy, my next one is:

07. Strategic — multiple files needing to work together, requiring the judgement of a strong generalist rather than a technical expert in one single area. Integration, I suppose.

10. Right fit — government, intellect over manual, system over transactions, specific files not general, manage level of personal investment

09. Environment — informal, networked, coalitions of the willing, mainly in English

While I think almost anyone would agree that “the people you work with” would definitely make it into the top ten, any one who has ever had a really bad experience would push that number much higher. Perhaps even number one. Which would make sense, in theory.

But when you choose a job, or choose to accept a job offer, do you really know? My suspicion is you don’t. I might know the boss and have good vibes. Or I know a co-worker. But I couldn’t possibly know every member of the team, all my staff, who the boss is, what the other managers are like, how the DG is on a regular basis. A friend likes to do three reference checks on bosses — with her belief that if one says they’re bad, they might not be, but if all three raise red flags, run the other way.

Which is a good way to avoid really bad bosses or toxic work environments (which might be indicated if all the staff are leaving in droves). But I don’t know if it does much to ensure a GOOD work environment, or even a great one.

And so you have to choose for other reasons, which I will be ranking higher in subsequent posts as I’m in Job Search Mode (or JSM, soon to be a registered trademark of PolyWogg Productions Inc hehehe). Yet if you asked me if a job I was doing or did in the past was good, sure, that would rise to the top. I know what bad bosses look like…vague, eccentric, micro-managing, yellers, abusers, pretty wide gamut in there. And my current job has been pretty dang good for that. Day to day, day in and day out, great team to work with and my last boss was so awesome to work with, I stayed an extra three years just because of him.

But as part of my Job Search? I can avoid bad and toxic, hard to be sure in advance it will be great. So it’s on the list, but only at number eight.

10. Right fit — government, intellect over manual, system over transactions, specific files not general, manage level of personal investment

It’s hard to rank the list of ten attributes precisely in descending order, but the next one on my list is basically the “environment”. Which itself is misleading as people might think I mean physical environment. I’m talking more about the nature of the work and the way different parts of the systems interact.

The first part of this is more “what I don’t want” again…I am not a great linguist, by any stretch of the definition. If I work really hard, I can pass my french test, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready for an environment where I would be working mostly in French. Or any other language that I might learn. It is a constraint for international diplomacy too. But separate from any sort of estimation of my abilities, growth or opportunity for improvement if I worked in French every day, etc., all of I which I’ll grant anyone who wants to argue, the long and short of it is that I don’t particularly enjoy it. Yes, I can do it, and I wouldn’t turn down a job that required it, but this is also about searching what I am looking for, and a heavy exercise of my linguistic abilities isn’t it.

Equally, I don’t particularly like negotiations. Working out details of a collaborative partnership with, say, an institutional partner? Sure. So I could do FPT relations. Or multilateral relations. But UN Conventions and resolutions, etc.? Probably not. I understand why some people love it, even negotiations with partners for Gs&Cs contracts, etc., but I find it very hard to get excited about it. Partly as it never feels like a true partnership to me…it is more like I’m paying them to agree, and if I find ways to leverage their agreement, we can work together. That is a lot of work to force-fit a relationship. Valuable, important, and even necessary in a lot of situations, but not the type of work I want to be doing with my life.

Which segues into my next point. I like collaborative networks — organic ones that come together for a common purpose because they want to work together, they want to share info, they want to do “something” together. Not because we had to force the negotiation or constrain the work into a specific box for it to work. Some might argue I only want to do it if it is easy, and perhaps so. I want to work on the functioning network, not cajoling someone into participating. In or out, doesn’t matter to me. That’s someone else’s problem. But once in, I know how to work with them. That’s the part I enjoy. Kind of like the “pathfinder” model that some multilateral organizations have embraced — smaller coalitions of the willing rather than lowest-common-denominator-of-the-forced.

The next point therefore won’t be a surprise. If I avoid formal negotiations and embrace networked collaborations of the willing, it isn’t surprising then that I want informal over formal. I was uncomfortable at DFAIT, and more comfortable at CIDA, and ESDC has been “just right” for me most of the time. But that is the environment I thrive in … making it work informally wherever possible. Regardless of organization, location, level of participants, just two people talking and sharing and collaborating.

Which brings me to the summary:

09. Environment — informal, networked, coalitions of the willing, mainly in English

When I started my job search, and decided to look back on the last 22 jobs that I have had, I had no idea how far my ruminations would take me. Now that I’m nearing the end of the “thinking” phase, I’ve created a short list of the top ten things I want in a job. And the tenth one on the list is kind of the “pre-condition” to even consider a job.

It seems a bit strange to think in terms of what I “don’t” want, and yet that’s where I start. Most of my early jobs were ones that I hated. Sure, they were sucky jobs by themselves, but they were also sucky for ME. I hated them. Piece-work, commissions, front-line service delivery, manual tasks. All of which worked against me. Some of that too was because they were about private-sector tasks — widget production, in a sense.

That’s not what interests me. Up until I had my first real government job at the Ministry of Education in B.C., I wasn’t sure I was even on the right track. I couldn’t help but worry that I would get in to the job and either not be any good at it or just plain hate it.

When I did get started in government (part 4), it was a huge relief. Part of that was the “office job”, part of it was government, part of it was policy, etc. Some of it was just thinking some of my previous jobs were almost parasitic (such as the telemarketing job).

I know that some jobs are going to suck, just as I know that some individual parts of jobs may suck too. Sometimes I took jobs just to have a job, and then had to make the best of them. I still learned things, even if what I learned took a while to become clear.

I know too that while I need to avoid jobs that obviously don’t suit me, there is also a risk too that I can become too emotionally invested in some files, too concerned with a specific outcome rather than relying on the process to move in the right direction.

I know some small things to avoid — like jobs that have too many “bits” and not enough large files, or jobs where we are micro-managing the partners we are supposed to be enabling.

Ultimately? I need a job that’s the right fit for me. And that starts with some key elements.

Government obviously, or at least public sector. Intellect over manual, system over transactions, specific files over a general handling of “bits”, and one where I can manage my level of personal investment without becoming too attached to the outcome.